Control Equals?
by Jack Mirembe
Summary: Respect. Getting it, keeping it, it's more complicated than you'd think. The Control Freak story!


_Apologies abound for my other stories that haven't gotten updates in forever. I can't seem to get over my mountainous writer's block long enough to come up with anything decent for them. But I'm trying, so never fear! In the mean time, here's a little something for one of my favorite villains. Go Control Freak! : ) It's a little OC but I think even the goofy bad guys deserve a little serious time in the spotlight. And it works if you are willing to stretch your imagination a little. Either way, Enjoy!_

_I don't own much, and lay claim to less. The Titans (and their villains) fall under both categories._

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It's a simple enough concept. Either you have it, or you don't. You always know when you've got it because it's hell when you don't.

Let's just say he knew what it was like to live without respect.

It just didn't make sense. Everybody but him had it. No matter what he did, that elusive respect kept disappearing whenever it came to him. He didn't know how you got respect because nothing he tried worked.

Some people managed to gain respect because they were smart. Their names would be written down in the history books, sprawled across billboards. He was brilliant. But nobody cared how brilliant he was. Just because he didn't have the good looks or social graces it was apparently fair to leave him in the dust.

It was supposed to be his fault that nobody wanted to talk to him? He was responsible for being laughed at all the time? There wasn't a single person on the whole planet who understood what it was like to be him. So they all laughed and pointed and stared. Just because he was different, a freak of nature. People had failed him, so he forgot them. They were really nothing special compared to technology.

He liked TV and video games. TV didn't judge you because you couldn't talk to a pretty girl. Video games didn't laugh when he tripped over his own feet and fell. They were dependable. A show was always going to be the same characters with the same personalities, unless you watched those stupid soap operas. (He hated those. Why create an alternate world even worse than the real one and not put in zombies?) A video game always had the same basic storyline. They were friends that wouldn't desert him. They were there for him, kept him entertained. How was it wrong for him to want to talk about the games, shows, and movies that cared about him when nobody else did?

Maybe he could have handled it if the world had been fair. If every other freak in this world got the same treatment, then maybe he could have kept living without respect. But no.

_They _were all freaks. _They_ didn't fit with the rest of the world. That's why they hid away on that little tower on an island in the middle of the ocean. They were just as strange and different as he was.

He had been ready. Waiting for hours after the fish aliens had been subdued, just to watch on live TV as the world ripped them to shreds, like it had done to him. He had even had snacks on hand. It was going to be the best night of his life. But had they been ridiculed? Humiliated? Insulted?

No. The world fell down around their feet. Called them heroes, thanked them, praised them even.

They were freaks. He was a freak. They were loved. He was persecuted. They were wanted. He was avoided. They were needed. He was unwanted.

That was the last straw. He had finally had enough of the world and waiting for them to be fair. That's why he created his reality-bending remote. With it in hand, he could _finally_ belong in the only place where it was the abnormal people that were adored. And not just a select few that pranced around on TV like they were something special, but _all _different people. No longer would he simply watch a perfect world on screen. He could make his little slice of reality a personal utopia. That was all the remote was supposed to be used for. Just to build a place where he could be himself without having to be ashamed.

Maybe he could have handled it if the world had been able to just leave him to his dream land. They couldn't do that though. They had to drag his world into it. So he had brought the fight to those judgmental idiots. And then the Titans had brought the fight to him.

His defeat had been humiliating. But he had discovered something important during that battle.

The Titans had started the fight with no respect with him. But then the actual battle had occured. They had even been running scared for a little while before the Boy Traffic Light had caught on and trigged the sprinklers. He had intimidated them. They had seen him as a threat, something worth taking the time to fight against. He had earned their respect as an enemy while they fought, no matter how short the fight itself had been.

Maybe he had been going about this wrong the whole time. It came to him in a burst of inspiration as the cop car bounced over a set of railway tracks.

You don't get respect by being you. You won't find respect by trying to fit in. You can't gain respect by staying out of the way. You don't earn respect by fighting for what you believe in.

You get respect through fear. You get it by being able to push your competition out of the way. Respect comes to those with the power. With great power, comes great control. And with control comes respect.


End file.
